It is common practice to deliver drinks to customers by placing a number of drinks on a flat tray. The waiter or waitress can then deliver the drinks to a table by balancing the drinks on the flat tray, placing the flat tray on the table and then removing the drinks. In other circumstances, the waiter or waitress will hand the drinks directly to the customer by lifting the drinks from the tray and handing the drinks to the customers.
In certain restaurants and bars, it is a common practice to provide the customer with flights of scotch. These flights of scotch allow the customer to sample a wide variety of different flavors of scotch. Typically, these flights of scotch will be four or five single once servings of various types of scotch at the same time. In other circumstances, flights of various other drinks, such as wine, vodka and rum, are delivered to the customer so that a customer can taste and compare the varieties of these drinks. The delivery of a variety of flights of a particular drink is becoming an increasingly common practice in restaurants and bars.
Heretofore, it has been exceeding difficult to deliver the flights of the drinks to the various tables. Since a variety of different drinks must be managed and carried to the particular table, the waiter or waitress could often mix up the various types that are to be delivered to the customer. In other circumstances, the drinks will spill as they are being transferred from the tray to the table. In any event, it is quite difficult to keep the drinks organized during the delivery to the table. As such, a need has developed for a particular type of tray or carrying device whereby the individual drinks can be properly organized, delivered, and consumed in a convenient and safe manner.
In the past, various patents have issued for drink carrying and delivering devices. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,971,167, issued on Oct. 26, 1999 to D. Finbow, teaches a holder for stemmed drinking vessels. This holder has a base and a bowl connected by a stem. The holder has a support structure and vessel supports are disposed on the support member to support a plurality of vessels with their stems crossed. The support structure is formed symmetrically about an axis to define an interior space for receiving the vessels.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,971,139, issued on Oct. 26, 1999 to V. H. Bradley, teaches a food and beverage tray. This tray includes a plate section that has a planar inner section that is surrounded by a raised lip. A cup holder, for holding a beverage container, is attached to the plate section by an intermediate section. A hand grip extends downwardly from the intermediate section. The hand grip is hollow and provides space for tableware and condiments. The hand grip has a plurality of serrations to facilitate gripping the hand grip. A plurality of supports extend downwardly from the plate section to provide additional support to the plate section when the food and beverage tray is placed upon a supporting surface. The supports are placed apart so as to extend downwardly on opposite sides of a person's arm when the food and beverage tray is held.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,131,732, issued on Oct. 17, 2000 to P. W. Schneider, describes a foam drink tray having improved cup cavities. This tray has a foam base with at least two cup cavities disposed in a top thereof. At least one hand cavity is formed in a top thereof for the retention by a hand. The side wall of each cup cavity is shaped in several different ways. Each side wall surface which contacts the cup or can is chamfered where it meets the top of tray.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,520,366, issued on Feb. 18, 2003 to Bradley et al., teaches a beverage container holder which includes a single-cup beverage container holder, a dual-cup beverage container holder, a three-cup beverage container holder and four-cup beverage container holder. The container holders are characterized by at least one container cup and a handle attached to the container cup. The handle is hollow and serrated to facilitate the non-rotatable nesting of the handles of two or more of the beverage container holders in either a stored or functional configuration. The various configurations of the container cups on the handles facilitate selective positioning of the container cups of multiple nested beverage container holders so as to enable an individual to carry a selected number of beverages using one hand at the nested handles.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a beverage holding device in which flights of an alcoholic beverage to be conveniently and easily carried.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a beverage container holder which can support various beverage containers upon a flat supporting surface.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a beverage container holder which allows a variety of such holders to be stored in a nested condition one upon the other.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a beverage container holder which allows the flights of the alcoholic beverage to be conveniently and easily displayed and organized.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a beverage container holder which is easy to use, relatively inexpensive, and easy to manufacture.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from a reading of the attached specification and appended claims.